The Blunt Force of Star Wars Nostalgia Awakens (Part III)

Note: This is a multi-part revision of a previous essay of the same title. Each part is linked below
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for the film Star Wars: The Force Awakens (but only spoilers about spoilers)


          More disappointing than Abrams lack of interest in continuing the Lucas’ narrative from the original films is his lack of interest in his own original contributions to the franchise. Abrams’ delivers hints at interesting relationships and events that occurred between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens such as Kylo Ren’s betrayal of Luke’s Jedi Academy and the establishment of a new Republic capital planet but they are not explored in any detail beyond side commentary and limited flashbacks. The most glaring example being the character of Finn, an ex-Storm Trooper who has fled the First Order and reluctantly joined the Resistance to fight his former masters. Why, is the Resistance even called the Resistance? Isn’t it aligned with the Republic government? Does it make sense for a ruling power to be called a Resistance? If there is a reason for this, it isn’t in the film. Finn’s moral epiphany at the beginning of the film is obscure; apparently witnessing combat first-hand horrified him, but Finn is initially disturbed by the death of a fellow Stormtrooper and not the death of the civilians he was sent to execute. Prior to being sent into combat, Finn served as a janitor on Starkiller Base, and yet apparently working on an instillation titled Starkiller Base for a genocidal organization gave him no indication for their murderous intent. More problematic is that Finn’s sudden change of heart is utterly unquestioned by members of the Resistance and creates no tension between himself and his comrades. The First Order apparently wipes out the entire star system of the new Republic and a former member of the First Order is present at the mission briefing to assault Starkiller Base and no one questions the security of exposing Finn to that information? Here Abrams had an original character concept of a former Stormtrooper turned reluctant hero, but had no apparent interest in using this character to introduce psychological or moral complexity to the narrative.       

            As much as I appreciated the new characters, their motivations and those of the factions they were aligned with remained obscure throughout the film to me as did the lasting consequences of their actions. While the political commentary of the prequels was boring and that of the original trilogy was minimal, it was at least present and at the time had nothing preceding it. The Force Awakens had a justified burden to explain the political reality of the new series so as to differentiate it from its predecessors. At times I simply could not understand why characters were acting the way that they were nor did I care what they were doing. I have already gone into detail regarding Finn’s moral epiphany to defect from the First Order. Another absurd circumstance characters find themselves in occurs shortly after Rey and Finn escape from the First Order on Jakku in the Millennium Falcon and are picked up by Han Solo and Chewbacca who have been looking for their old ship for years. Conveniently the ship is detected by them on their scanners just as our heroes are in need of a mentor to guide them to the Resistance. It seemed that the Force was the only explanation as to the way characters reacted or were brought together in incomprehensible ways. I would have been able to accept this explanation, if only the explanation was offered. I would have been willing to accept that the Force was bringing our heroes together again and again if only the heroes felt more inclined to invoke it as well. Having a Deus Ex Machina in a fantastical narrative is one thing, but you have to at least make it apparent that it is something that the characters acknowledge.

            It is all too easy to predict the direction of The Force Awaken’s plot because so much of the plot is a repeat and remixing of previous Star Wars narrative elements, especially A New Hope. As I wrote in another post, the only spoiler for this film is that there are no spoilers. If you have watched the previous films in the franchise, then Abrams’ film is already spoiled for you. Excited to see The Force Awakens, I decided to re-watch the original films to refresh my understanding of the series lore, but this actually detracted from my enjoyment of the newest film in the franchise because so much of the plot I had already watched nights before but in a different film. I would have applauded Abram’s aping of the original trilogy’s plot if he took advantage of fan expectations in order to subvert them and create something exciting. Fans of any franchise obsess over lore and narrative and they know how events play out within the history of a series. Abrams’ could have distracted his audience at first with nostalgic familiarity and then halfway through the film thrown an unexpected twist into an otherwise predictable narrative. For example, instead of the Resistance attacking Starkiller Base after it had already destroyed the Republic, the assault on the weapon station could be carried out in the hope of preventing such a scenario from occurring in the first place. The Republic doesn’t take the threat of the base seriously after already defeating two Death Stars and sends a small force to destroy it using the same strategy as before. And they fail. The fleet is destroyed or captured and our heroes watch in horror as the Republic is destroyed before them. They barely escape before their lives and now the stakes for subsequent films could never be higher. The First Order possesses a weapon more powerful and impenetrable than its Death Star predecessors and the Republic has fallen. Now our heroes much search the galaxy for those willing to unite against the First Order and prevent the rise of a second Empire. This would have sent a powerful message to both the characters and audience alike that while this is a Star Wars film, it is like none you have seen before. Sadly, Abrams’ film was not that film and suffers for its entirely predictable narrative.

            The scene where the First Order obliterates the star system of the new Republic is the most significant atrocity of the entire film, if not the entire Star Wars canon universe but you would hardly notice as the narrative unfolds on screen. It was not until I read supplementary material that I became aware that the system destroyed by Starkiller Base was the site of the new Republic. This incomprehensible act of evil is hardly given any motivation on the part of the villains beyond stating that the Republic “tolerates disorder” (wouldn’t destroying an entire star system create far more disorder?). So little context is established in the film regarding the First Order and Republic that there is no for the audience to determine whether the Republic really was an ineffectual government or whether the proclamations of the First Order were empty propaganda. The only scene approaching a depiction of the Republic itself is the very scene in which its planets are destroyed, thereby robbing its obliteration of any emotional significance to the audience, or characters for that matter. None of the characters appear to live under any form of galactic governance, from the First Order or Republic, so no small wonder that they exhibit little horror when it is annihilated before them. Perhaps aware of this, Abrams spends no time in the remainder of the film dwelling upon this absurd level of destruction. Because the Republic is never explicitly depicted, there is no way for audiences to establish the extent of damage caused by its loss and the conflict of the film remains largely unaffected by this development. Considering that the Starkiller Base is destroyed, it remains uncertain how the conflict will develop in subsequent films. Will there be a bigger Starkiller Base? Will there be two instead of just one? Without representing the loss of the Republic to the galaxy, it likely won’t even matter.

          Of course Lucas didn’t spend any particular attention to the destruction of Alderaan in A New Hope but that was just one planet. Abrams destroyed a multitude of them which comprised the core capital of the newly formed Republic government in the galaxy. The scale and significance of these atrocities could not be more different. And therein lies a further problem with Abrams’ film conflict: it betrays the vision of the original films and with it the fan-base for the Star Wars series. Lucas’ original films were all about the defeat of the Empire so that the Republic could be rebuilt; Return of the Jedi culminates in a celebration of the death of Emperor Palpatine, signaling hope for generations to come. Finally, a new film emerges able to show what that hope looks like and it looks exactly the same as when the Empire was still in power. Abrams doesn’t spend enough, or any, time providing political context for the film for this to be excused as a cynical comment on the ineffectual political revolutions. It’s just lazy, if not arrogant, film-making. Disney apparently wasn’t content to erase the expanded universe canon, they also decided the erase the significance of Lucas’ canon films. If Disney is the Empire, then it is what remains in the First Order, obliterating original opportunities and erasing the significance of past films so that it can resell an old narrative as something new.